Story and Lore of StarCrawlers
Rapid technological advancement has sent humanity sprawling to the farthest reaches of known space. Spreading out from the core, an uneasy alliance of megacorps wields dominance over all, bending lesser powers to their will in a never-ending quest for wealth. This “Universal Foundation for Prosperity” styles itself a benevolent advisory board; in reality they routinely exploit the outer worlds to finance the extravagance of their privileged lives.
However, cracks are beginning to appear in the UFP alliance and old secrets have become weapons in a new power struggle. On the fringes of space, the iron grasp of the UFP has yet to close in. It’s a place where allegiances are everything, power is lost as easily as it is gained, and a good payday is always on the horizon, provided you’ve got the skills to get the job done.
The powerful member corps of the UFP are major landowners throughout the galaxy, controlling entire planets and sometimes squabbling over them. The decentralized local governments of free planets are essentially shills for whatever corp is dominant in their region and they risk removal (or outright corporate takeover) if they step out of line.
Faction Reputation / Threat Levels and Narrative AI
The StarCrawlers universe is rife with different factions and entities competing for power. You’ll navigate the intricacies of these power struggles as you take and complete missions. Take a job against a corporation, and your reputation with them will decrease at the same time your threat level increases. Run a lot of missions against the same corp and eventually they’ll start taking precautions against you - warning their security teams to be on the lookout for your crew and ratcheting up the difficulty rating when you’re doing runs in their territory. Betraying a mission giver, or even just doing a particularly shoddy job on a mission, will also negatively affect your reputation with a corp, making them more cautious in their future dealings with your crew
